


Where Guilford Street Ends

by mirawonderfulstar



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Copious Silly Nods To Canon, Ghosts, Historical References, Horror, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-01 12:12:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13294635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mirawonderfulstar/pseuds/mirawonderfulstar
Summary: "When I looked around, I saw and heard of none like me. Was I then a monster?" -Mary Shelley, FrankensteinThe Angel Of Death stalks the streets of London. Eiffel and his agoraphobic roommate Hera meet a medical student from the nearby university, Minkowski and Lovelace run a theater together, and Hilbert has a dangerous secret.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I got waaaaay to into looking at old maps for this fic. If you want to look at the maps I was looking at, here is the neighborhood Eiffel and Hera live in. http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=18&lat=51.5243&lon=-0.1152&layers=163&b=1  
> This map is from 1896 but this fic is set twentyish years earlier than that, not that it matters a bunch. I'm not really going for stringent historical accuracy here I'm just throwing everything I know and have ever learned about a bunch of different aspects of the Victorian Era into a word document and then playing with them. 
> 
> I wanted this first chapter to be longer but I realized in the early evening that today is Sherlock Holmes's birthday and I felt like it'd be an appropriate day to publish it because of that.

Eiffel jumped off the back of the tram and landed lightly on the road in front of the tiny post office that faced Gray’s Inn Road. He grinned and waved to the woman staring out the window of the still-moving vehicle at him. She looked scandalized. Eiffel chuckled as he headed into the building and pulled out Hera’s post-box key from the pocket of his coat. With a quick glance over the return addresses to see if she’d heard back from her magazine yet, he tucked her stack of envelopes into the top of the paper bag he was carrying and closed P.O. Box 953 back up again.  

The wind outside made him shiver slightly after the greater warmth of the post office, and Eiffel pulled up the collar of his coat around his ears with a glance at the sky. It didn’t look like the sun would be coming back out today, but it also didn’t look like snow, for which Eiffel was very thankful. He hadn’t been able to get Hera’s shoes resoled and she’d have to buy new ones for the winter, which could take three days or could take an entire month depending on whether she’d been able to sell any of her writing. Eiffel glanced at the envelopes in the top of his grocery bag and hurried along to get home, eager to get out of the cold and to give Hera her letters.

Eiffel and Hera lived together in a small flat off Gray’s Inn Road, above a pub owned by an acquaintance. It would be a cold day in hell before Eiffel called their landlord a friend, but Kepler did at least stay out of their business and that was about as much as two people in their circumstances could hope for. Eiffel was an orphan, raised in the nearby Foundling Hospital, and Hera… Eiffel wasn’t quite sure where Hera had come from, but he was glad to have her for all her peculiarities. He couldn’t have afforded to live on his own, and she kept people from asking about his married life. Eiffel did that for Hera, too. They made a good team that way, Eiffel thought wryly as he climbed the stairs to their rooms.

“Hera, baby, you awake?” He called as he set down his bag of groceries in their kitchen and started unpacking it into the pantry.

“Yes, Eiffel, I’m awake.” She called sleepily from her room. Eiffel suspected that if he stuck his head in she’d be lying in bed wrapped up in her robe and blankets with a stack of paper and a pencil. She was sensitive to the cold even during the summer, but as the days grew shorter she went outside less and less and slept much more, her already limited sphere of mobility shrinking from the neighborhood surrounding their flat to the flat itself and Kepler’s pub.

“Good, I got your mail for you.” He waved the envelopes in front of her open door with one hand as he put a bag of flour into the pantry with the other.

Hera hurried out of the room (Eiffel grinned to see he’d been correct in guessing she was dressed in a robe and blankets) and snatched them from him. She sat down at the table, pulled her blankets more tightly around herself, and began to rip one open.

“I can’t believe how long it’s taken them to get back to me about this story, you’d think they didn’t plan on buying it.” She said waspishly. Eiffel shrugged as he joined her at the table, lighting the overhead lamp as he went.

“Maybe they have some stories lined up for publishing already.”

“Not from H. F. Aestus, they don’t.” Hera snapped. Eiffel rolled his eyes at her ridiculous pen name. “Scoff all you want, my work is always popular in autumn and winter, I’m honestly shocked it’s taken me this long to sell this particular story.”

“You don’t think it might hit a _little_ close to home right now?” Eiffel pointed out. “With people’s ailing loved ones vanishing left and right?”

“The ‘Angel Of Death’ thing, you mean?” Hera snorted. “I can't believe the papers recently. It’s one thing to sell sensationalized fiction, it’s another to do the same with real events.”

Eiffel shrugged. “I’m just saying, I don’t know if a story about a serial killer is something people want to read about right now.”

Hera opened another envelope and hummed skeptically. “My story isn’t about a serial killer, it’s about the detective hunting him. I’d think the idea of somebody catching whoever’s going around and making the bodies of the sick and dying disappear would be comforting to people.” She clucked her tongue at the letter she was reading and moved to open the last one. “How were Minkowski and Lovelace, by the way?”

Eiffel could tell she was deliberately changing the subject but let it happen; trying to push Hera when she didn’t want to talk rarely went anywhere productive for either of them. “They were good, really good. They’re in the middle of putting Twelfth Night together.”

Hera snorted again as her eyes skimmed her last letter. “Twelfth Night for Christmas, how original.”

“Don’t be like that.” Eiffel chided. “It sells, there’s a happy ending, and Minkowski’s excited about it.”

“And Lovelace?”

“I think Lovelace just likes doing things Minkowski likes, honestly.” Eiffel said, leaning back on his chair and grinning up at the lamplight flickering across the ceiling. The sun was setting now, and the room was growing dark. Frost had begun to form on the lower panes of the window looking out over the courtyard for the pub. Eiffel weighed the benefit of lighting the fireplace in the sitting room against the expense of doing so; he wouldn’t get paid until the end of the week and they were running low on coal.

Hera hummed again, this time warmly. “Well. I have in fact managed to sell this story, but it won’t run until next week.”

“So when do you get paid?”

“As soon as I send out the complete manuscript.” Hera stood up and adjusted her blankets before heading back into her room. “If we need the money desperately you could take it down to Fleet Street tomorrow.”

Eiffel groaned. “I work a full day tomorrow, I’d have to go either in the early morning or really late at night.”

Hera came back into the room holding a thick envelope and a pen, bustling around for a jar of ink. “Would you rather be cold tonight inside or cold tomorrow night outside?” Hera said shrewdly, gesturing to the empty fireplace in the sitting room. Eiffel sighed.

“Okay _fine_.”

 

Eiffel spent the majority of the next day indoors and much too warm- working in a brass foundry will do that to you. He watched the pace of the sun through the high glass windows as he worked, looking to the east from his place on the assembly line until the sun rose over his head and out of sight. Then he spent the afternoon watching the lengthening shadows from his building as they fell on the telegraph factory next door and the sky darken with steel-grey clouds.

Eiffel spent a lot of time daydreaming about the telegraph factory, actually. Standing in the same place, doing the same thing, day after day, with the same view, it got to be a habit. Eiffel had been very interested in telegraphy, once upon a time.

The Foundling Hospital had taken the children to the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace when he and Minkowski had been young and he could remember the two of them finding a booth where a man had been displaying a new model of an electrical telegraph. Eiffel had been fascinated. Minkowski had been underwhelmed, and had wanted to go look at the booth where a man from Denmark had been debuting an innovation for a piano, but Eiffel had stood in front of the telegraph booth for hours. He could remember asking the man if there would ever be a possibility of sending sound via technology, because hearing someone’s voice would eliminate the problems new models of telegraphs were striving to solve. The man had laughed at him and shooed him away, but Eiffel had never stopped wondering whether someday people could send sound to each other. It was sort of romantic, in a way, the idea of voices travelling across the city or country or a greater distance. Maybe of music doing the same.

And so now he stood, day after day, looking up and out the window at the business across the street and wondering if the people inside were wondering the same thing he’d always wondered, and wishing he could go inside to find out. Instead he was stuck in the foundry, sweating his ass off doing repetitive manual labor so he could bring home money to afford rent and food and coal for the fire. But a living was a living. Work was work and fun was fun and if never the twain could meet for him, he supposed he would have to live with that.

The sun had set by the time Eiffel got out of work that evening. He returned home, grabbed Hera’s manuscript, and left again immediately, eager to get down to the printing office and back as soon as possible, before the clouds overhead started dropping snow.

 

He made it to the office just as they were getting ready to close up, but Eiffel managed to convince Mr Glass at the front to take the heavy envelope and pay him for Hera’s work. She’d made arrangements months ago when she’d started selling to this publisher for somebody else to make her deliveries when sending things through the mail wouldn’t suffice, and Eiffel was well accustomed by this time to the glares he’d get from Glass when he showed up as everyone was leaving for the day.

He wondered sometimes what this man imagined his relationship to the mysterious Mr Aestus, who sold stories to a variety of London magazines but was never seen in public, to be. It amused Eiffel to no end to think of people acknowledging Hera, small delicate Hera who wouldn’t travel further than a block away from their flat in any direction, as the person responsible for the sometimes grisly horror and crime stories Aestus sold.

This continued to occupy Eiffel’s thoughts as he headed back home, up Shoe Lane and past the churchyard of St Andrew’s. He was almost to Holborn Circus when movement in the churchyard made him stop and do a double take.

Eiffel peered through the fence and between the headstones, sure he’d seen someone or some _thing_ moving in there. For several moments he was deathly still, looking around for the source of the disturbance and wishing it wasn’t so dark or that he’d brought a knife with him. The snow which had been threatening all day had begun to fall softly, quietly, onto the earth in front of him and street behind him. If there was anybody, they would leave footprints or disturbances in the snow. Unless, of course, they weren’t entirely human.

With this thought Eiffel let out a yelp and backed away from the fence, setting off at a run for Holborn Circus and turning into the street clutching his hat to keep it falling off. He ran all the way back to Gray’s Inn Road, where he hopped on the last tram of the night and rode it back to his and Hera’s flat, shaking from a combination of cold and nerves until well after he was inside and preparing a fire in the grate.

Eiffel sat in front of the fire, shivering away the last of his shock and berating himself for getting so frightened. He was going to have to go get coal tomorrow now, which meant giving up his day off this week. What a dumb thing to do, running away from some gravestones in the dark.

“Eiffel? Did you drop off the manuscript?” Hera asked, coming into the room and raising her eyebrows in concern when she saw him crouching on the floor in front of the fire.

“I did, yeah. The money’s on the table.” Eiffel gestured towards the kitchen.

“Are you okay? Come sit on the couch.” Hera asked, offering him the blanket that was piled in her usual seat. Eiffel took it and wrapped it around himself, tucking his feet up underneath him as he sat down.

“I’m fine, I just thought I saw something. Scared myself on the way back and forgot to get more coal.” Eiffel laughed self-depreciatingly, but Hera looked very serious.

“What kind of something?”

Eiffel shrugged. “I don’t know, something? I walked past a churchyard and got spooked, that’s all.”

Instead of laughing along with Eiffel Hera looked concerned. “You could have gotten hurt. What if there _is_ a serial killer loose?”

Eiffel shook his head.  “C’mon, Hera, I thought you didn’t believe in that Angel Of Death theory the papers have been running.”

“I don’t, but…” She bit her lip and looked into the fire, thinking. “I just… don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

Eiffel wrapped his arm around Hera’s shoulder and gave her a small squeeze. “Nothing bad’s gonna happen. I promise.”

 

Not twelve hours later, something bad did happen. Eiffel went to the shed near St Pancras Station where coal was sold in the early morning, enjoying being outside when the sun was out. It was warmer than it had been in several days, and the dusting of snow they’d gotten the night before was melting off in the sunlight. Eiffel hummed to himself a little as he walked away from the shed, something he’d heard Minkowski teaching the chorus for the last musical her theater had done. He wasn’t really paying attention to his surroundings beyond making sure he was on the right street.

And then, somebody hit him in the head with a blunt object and he stumbled against the pavement. He staggered, catching himself against the wall of the nearby building, and looked up in horror to see the man who’d hit him running down the street with his bag of coal.

“Hey! Stop!” Eiffel shouted, knowing it was futile as he tried to straighten up to chase him and felt a blanching pain spread out from his temple. He staggered forward and had to lean on the wall again to keep from falling. Eiffel swore under his breath as he doubled over and closed his eyes. That had been more than a week’s worth of coal.

“Are you alright?” a gruff voice asked him in an unfamiliar accent. Gentle hands flit over his forehead briefly before landing on his wrists. Eiffel looked up at the man who was pulling him into a fully standing position and swallowed.

“Uh… yeah, I think so?” Eiffel said, trying not to stare at the stranger who’d stopped to help him, because he was, frankly, gorgeous. His hair fell in waves around his face and his eyes seemed to sparkle behind round little glasses. He looked very tired, if the dark circles under his eyes were anything to go by, but was well-dressed, Eiffel thought, wincing in sympathy as he caught sight of the red now staining his glove where he’d touched Eiffel’s forehead.

“You’re bleeding.” The man said with a tsking sound, and caught Eiffel by the shoulders when Eiffel made to walk forward after the thief, who was now retreating around a corner up ahead.

“That guy stole my coal! I can’t afford to- ow.” Eiffel’s words were cut off abruptly as the man prodded him in the chest.

“You can’t afford to go running off in your current state. Your injury may affect your ability to walk.”

“Who are you?” Eiffel snapped. “What the hell do you know?”

The man scowled. “My name is Alexander Hilbert. I am a doctor and you are injured. Merely wanted to help.” He picked up Eiffel’s stolen bag from the ground and thrust it into his hands. “Saw you were in no state to go after him so I, ah, improvised.” An expression of discomfort flickered across his face.

“Oh.” Eiffel said weakly. “Thank you.” He hefted the bag. It seemed to still be full.

“You’re welcome. Now, do you have supplies to treat your head at your home, or will you come with me back to mine so I can ensure wound isn’t serious?”

Eiffel blinked at him several times. He was still scowling, and a slight flush was rising on his cheeks as the wind blew past them. The sun seemed much less warm than it had done a few minutes ago. Eiffel nodded slowly.

“Yes. I mean, no, I don’t have supplies, I’ll go with you if it’ll make you feel better.” Eiffel took a step away from the wall and immediately felt his head spin. Hilbert caught him and kept him from falling.

“What is your name?” He asked, sounding exasperated, as he threw Eiffel’s arm around his shoulder and began leading him down a sidestreet back in the direction Eiffel had come from.

Eiffel winced as another gust of wind blew cold across his bloody face. “Douglas Eiffel.”

“Well, Eiffel,” Hilbert said, “thankfully for you we are not very far from my flat. I’ll tend to your forehead and take you back to your own home.”

Eiffel chuckled weakly. “I’m probably out of my mind going with you but, sure, why not? For all I know you could be a serial killer luring me home to murder me.”

Hilbert stopped walking and glared at Eiffel. “Don’t be ridiculous. What makes you think of such things?”

Eiffel waved a hand and regretted it immediately as the movement made him slightly dizzy. “It’s nothing personal, doc. Hera’s very into horror fiction, it’s something I think about a lot.”

“Ah.” Hilbert’s tone cleared and he started walking again, adjusting Eiffel’s weight against him as he went. “Your ‘Hera’ sounds charming.”

“She is, actually.” Eiffel ignored Hilbert’s sarcastic tone. “She’d probably ask if you’re really a doctor right about now.”

Hilbert sighed. “I am studying surgery at University College.”

“Yeah?” Eiffel was impressed. Most medical students were either uptight snobs going to school on daddy’s money, or amoral sadists who were in it for the blood and viscera. Not that Eiffel had met many medical students, but the two he had prior to today were more than enough for him.

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, that’s something.” Eiffel murmured. Hilbert hummed in agreement. They didn’t talk again until they rounded the corner onto Burton Crescent and Hilbert raised a hand to point to a row of buildings.

“I live behind there.”

“Behind-“ Eiffel began, but they moved forward and he nodded, seeing the second, much smaller, much closer together row of buildings behind the first.

“We will have to go around other side to get in, are you fit to walk further?” Hilbert asked him, turning to look at his forehead again with some concern.

“I’ll be fine.”

They walked around the curve of the flats and behind the back, where Hilbert pushed open a rusted and battered gate next to a small sweet shop. They headed down a narrow passage full of grimy looking front stoops, and Hilbert pulled Eiffel out of the way to avoid stepping in a large puddle of something before taking a key from his pocket and opening the second to last door on the row. he pulled Eiffel up the rickety stairs with him, into the building.

Hilbert’s flat was even smaller than Eiffel and Hera’s, and darker, but it was also considerably warmer. Hilbert settled Eiffel down into a threadbare armchair and told him to stay put before going into the tiny kitchen and returning with a black bag, a glass of water, and a damp cloth. He shoved the glass into Eiffel’s hand before crouching down level with him and dabbing blood off his face, ignoring Eiffel’s winces and rolling his eyes at his quiet grumbling.

“If I don’t clean this wound you might get infection.” Hilbert scolded him after a while. “Please stop moving and let me help.”

Eiffel forced himself to stay still, looking around the little room to distract himself from thinking about how gentle Hilbert’s hands were on his face and how up close he could see a mole on his neck now he’d taken off his coat and scarf.

“So… you’re studying to be a surgeon, huh?” Eiffel asked.

“Yes.”

“Do you… like it?”

“Well enough.”

“What made you want to-“

“Eiffel!” Hilbert cut him off. “Be quiet.”

Eiffel complied.

Several minutes later, Hilbert leaned back and looked at Eiffel’s face. “I’m done. How do you feel? Do you think you can walk home?”

Eiffel shrugged. “I think so?” He stood up and immediately swayed.

“I will walk you home anyway.” Hilbert said dryly, getting to his feet as well.

 

Hera was not happy to have a stranger brought into the house, but she thanked Hilbert in a tight voice when Eiffel explained what had happened. With a forced smile to Eiffel’s new acquaintance, she went into her bedroom and shut the door, leaving Eiffel and Hilbert standing in the entryway together.

“Sorry about her.” Eiffel muttered as he set the bag of coal down in the front closet. “She’s very shy.”

“I see.” Hilbert said, still looking at the closed door. “Your wife?”

Eiffel considered this for a moment. Normally he would have said yes. It was just… easier, that way, to have people assume that the two of them lived together because they were married, than to have people poking their noses into the more complicated nature of their lives. Nobody needed to know that Eiffel was more interested in men, and that Hera wasn’t interested in anybody but also couldn’t stand to live alone.

But Hilbert seemed like he had enough complications of his own to treat Eiffel and Hera’s lives with some discretion. He was a foreigner studying medicine, who obviously had a little bit of money, but who lived on a downright shady back alley and had stopped to help a stranger in the street. “No.” Eiffel said. “We’re just friends.”

Hilbert nodded but didn’t inquire further.

“I’ve seen you home safely, I should go.” Hilbert said, his brows creasing as he looked from the closed door to Eiffel.

“Like I said, she’s just shy. She doesn’t go out much.” Eiffel said again.

“What about you? Do you go out much?” Hilbert asked. Eiffel took his coat off and hung it in the closet to buy himself time to think.

“I’m still a little bit out of it from getting hit on the head, you’ll have to tell me what you mean.” Eiffel said after a moment.

“What do you do for a living?” Hilbert clarified. Eiffel felt an odd mix of relief and disappointment.

“I uh…” Eiffel desperately didn’t want to tell this very attractive man who’d let him into his home and bandaged his head that he worked in a foundry. “I do work with telegraphs, do you know anything about that?”

“Nothing.” Hilbert said. Eiffel nodded.

“Well, I’m working on developing new technology for communicating.” Eiffel said, grinning at Hilbert. “You know someday people are going to be able to talk to each other across huge distances?”

“Really?” Hilbert asked, a small smile flickering across his face as he wound his scarf back on and prepared to leave. “How wonderful. Good day, Eiffel.”

“Wonderful.” Eiffel repeated softly to himself, prodding gently at the bandage on his forehead as the door closed behind Hilbert.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shout-out to the person who left the really long review on this and reminded me I was excited about the plot of this story.

Hera stayed in her room for the rest of the day. She didn’t come out until the evening, after the sun had gone down and all the warmth from the day had leaked out her east-facing window. Eiffel gave her his brightest smile as she entered the room. She glowered faintly back for a moment, then sighed.

“I really wish you wouldn’t let people in here.” She didn’t look at him as she settled into her armchair.

“I know, I’m sorry. He was just dropping me off.”

“Hmm.” Hera sounded skeptical. “I heard him ask about us.”

Eiffel snorted. “What were you, listening at the door?”

“Yes.” Hera said without a hint of embarrassment. “You told him we weren’t married.”

“So?” Eiffel shifted uncomfortably on the couch.

“So… he’s kind of your type, Eiffel.” Hera’s tone had turned teasing.

“What?! That’s ridiculous.” Eiffel denied, but he looked off into the fire rather than meet her eyes just the same. “I haven’t introduced you to enough men for you to have discerned my type.”

Hera laughed. “Trust me, you have a type. Who do you think I’ve been writing the detective stories for?”

“You think my type is tall, dark, and mysterious?” Eiffel gave an exaggerated gasp and placed a hand on his heart. “I can’t believe you’d accuse me of something so… so banal.”

Hera shook her head, looking at him thoughtfully. “No. Your type is… people who are better than everyone expects them to be. Overlooked people.”

Eiffel chuckled, trying to hide his discomfort. “Whatever you say, Hera.”

“I’m serious. You like people who prove your optimism in humanity right. Like Lovelace. She could have completely screwed Minkowski over and taken the theater from her but you trusted her and you turned out to be right. You believed in her and I think that really affected the way her and Minkowski warmed up to each other. It’s kind of charming.”  Eiffel rolled his eyes. “No, I’m serious. You’re a pretty good judge of character, it’s the only reason I put up with Kepler.”

“Yeah, well, if you think I think there’s some heart of gold buried deep down in Kepler, you need to think again. He’s a self-involved bastard. You know he’s always gonna do what’s best for him, so as long as you know what that is, you’re safe. Doesn’t make him a good person.” Eiffel picked at a thread on the arm of the couch. “Speaking of Kepler, let’s go down to the pub.”

“Changing the subject?” Hera said with a hum. “Fine, if you don’t want to talk about this doctor-“

“I don’t know what else there is to talk about. He kept a thief from running off with our coal and bandaged my head.” _And he’s handsome as hell_ , Eiffel thought.

“Are you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know, maybe.” _If I can come up with a good reason to go to his home again._ “Let’s go to the pub, huh? You haven’t been out of the flat in days.”

Hera sighed airily. “Alright, let me go get dressed.”

 

The Blue Lion, the rather grimy but undoubtedly warm pub that comprised the ground floor of their flat, was about as busy as any pub could be expected to be on a weekday night in the winter. Hera and Eiffel took their usual seat in a tiny nook near the back, blocked from view of the rest of the room but placed in such a way that they could observe but not be observed. Hera glanced around every time the door from the street opened and watched the people coming in until they sat down at the bar or at the ten or so tiny tables to choose from. The Blue Lion was not a place groups of people went, it was almost always pair or solitary persons. Eiffel sipped at a cordial and watched right along with her. He probably would never be as good at making up stories about strangers as Hera was but they amused themselves and each other passing observations back and forth.

“Why do you think that man there’s in such a hurry to get his drink?” Hera said, pointing to a tall, broad man with impressive sideburns who had jogged up to the bar from the doorway and sat down heavily to wave the bartender over.

“He’s not supposed to be drinking and wants to get something down before his wife sends someone to look for him.” Eiffel suggested. “See, look how fast he put that away.” Eiffel took another sip of his own drink. “What about this couple that just came in?”

“Hmm, French I think, going by the cut of her dress. Or at least, she is. Maybe they met on his vacation to the continent and he swept her off her feet and brought her home with him just in time for Christmas.” He was certainly dressed smartly enough for it, Eiffel thought.

“Why would somebody who can afford to vacation in France come to this pub?” Eiffel snorted, taking a bite of his dinner and grimacing slightly at the bit of gristle he encountered. Kepler’s cook could do wonders with what he had, but they really could stand to get a better butcher.

“Oh, his family disapproves, so she’s living on her own in this neighborhood until he can settle his inheritance.” Hera fabricated.

“Sounds about right.” Eiffel chuckled. Hera grinned back over her own food.

The door swung open and Eiffel turned around again, ready to spin a tale about the newest arrivals, only to groan softly as he recognized the pair who’d walked in the door.

“Do you know them?” Hera asked, following his gaze.

“Not well, thank god. I bumped into them going up to the flat the other day, they’re living in Kepler’s other rooms.” Eiffel said, continuing to watch them with distaste as they sat down in another secluded spot in the room, right under the front window.

“Huh. They look like trouble, honestly.”

“You’re telling me.” Eiffel snorted. “What would you say they are?”

Hera pursed her lips and stared at them for several moments. She clasped her hands on the table in front of her as she thought. “Well,” she began, “he looks like he does something dangerous and self-important for a living. I’d say military but he’s not quite as tidy as most military men. I don’t think they’re married or he’d probably correct her posture right now.” Hera gestured to the woman’s easy slouch against the hard chair.

“She doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who lets men boss her around.” Eiffel commented.

“I think you’re probably right. She dresses like she has money and normally rich women are the most deeply entrenched in ideas about propriety and decorum but I don’t think she is so she can’t have _come from_ money.”

“Where do you think she got it, then?”

“From him?” Hera said doubtfully. “if they’re living together they must do some sharing of finances, maybe she’s buying herself nice things with his money?”

“Well, I don’t know anything about her background, but I know his father’s paying for him to go to the medical school and that he’s been sneaking her into his classes with him somehow.”

Hera stared at him. “Come on, Eiffel. How could you know that?”

Eiffel shifted in his chair. “I _may_ have been doing some eavesdropping of my own when I ran into them.” That was an understatement, Eiffel thought. He'd been crouching under the stairs leading up to their flat, in front of his own door, listening to them as they came down from the rooms. They'd seen him coming around the corner and he'd had to introduce himself quickly to make it look like he was just being a curious neighbor and not someone trying to listen in on their conversation.

Hera tsked at him.

“Their names are Daniel Jacobi and Alana Maxwell, I heard them discussing their classes and laughing about how Jacobi’s father would flip his lid if he knew he was paying for a woman to go to university with his son. I’m not sure how they’re doing it but they are definitely swindling Jacobi senior out of his money so that she can study medicine.”

Hera looked impressed as her gaze shifted back to the pair under the window. “I bet they’d be interesting to talk to.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to talk to them.” Eiffel said darkly. “You should have heard the way they were talking about one of the lectures they attended. It was like something out of your horror stories.”

Hera raised her eyebrows over her drink. “How so?”

Eiffel swallowed a bite of his food, thinking back to the conversation he’d been listening in on from the stairwell to the flats. “They’re too detached about death and destruction.”

Hera made an impatient clucking sound with her tongue. “People say that about Mr Aestus and his stories, Eiffel. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“No but like… really detached. They were talking about an amputation they saw and the man’s likelihood of survival like it was nothing. They were betting to each other how many days it’ll be before he’s dead.”

Hera hummed and didn’t say anything.

“It just doesn’t seem right, to be like that about people whose health and wellbeing you’re supposed to be looking after.”

“Dealing with death is a part of the profession.” Hera pointed out. “Of course medical students are more blasé about such things. Your new friend is probably the same way.” She smirked at the way Eiffel grumbled. “I’m just pointing out the obvious.”

They finished their food in relative quiet, pointing out the occasional strange behavior or dress of someone entering the pub to each other, but mostly just eating and enjoying the greater warmth of the pub. Eiffel was already thinking about whether he wanted to light a fire when they went home or just go to bed and curl up under his layers of blankets to stay warm.

By the time they were ready to leave the pub had emptied out- the only other people left were Jacobi and Maxwell in their own corner, and Kepler, who’d come down from his rooms for his regular evening drink about ten minutes ago. Hera was looking like she wanted to leave before he got a chance to talk to them, and with this goal in mind Eiffel began pulling his coat back on quietly and unobtrusively.

Kepler was obviously in a talkative mood, however, because they’d barely made it to the door before he called out to them from his seat at the bar.

“Mr and Mrs Eiffel!”

Eiffel gave Hera’s hand a brief apologetic squeeze as he turned back around to smile at Kepler. “Mr Kepler. How are you this evening?”

“Well enough, Eiffel, well enough. I had a meeting with my bookkeeper today. Nothing but good things to say about you, of course. I told him, Mr Eiffel may not be an upper crust member of society, but he always pays his rent on time.”

Eiffel nodded, his smile feeling very strained. “Glad to hear it. I wouldn’t want anybody to give you any _trouble_.” Hera stood on his foot, clearly not impressed with his sarcastic tone.

Kepler laughed. “That’s what I like about you, Eiffel. You’ve got a good sense of humor.” He swallowed a mouthful of whiskey. “In fact, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. Mr Jacobi?” Kepler called towards the pair still sitting under the window, and Jacobi stood up with a look at Maxwell before trotting over to the bar to join them.

“Mr Jacobi, this is Mr Eiffel, another one of my tenants. He lives on the second floor.”

“Yeah, I assumed as much. We’ve met.” Jacobi said, sticking out one of his hands, which Eiffel shook with some discomfort. “I don’t think I’ve been introduced to your…”

“Wife.” Eiffel said quickly. “This is Hera.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Eiffel.” Jacobi looked like he was debating kissing her hand but had thought better of it.

“The same to you. Is that your wife by the window?” Hera asked him, gesturing to Maxwell. Eiffel wished stepping on someone’s foot was something you could pull off without a long skirt to cover the movement.

“No, that’s Alana Maxwell. Alana!” Jacobi called to her, and she joined them a moment later.

“Well, hello again.” She said to Eiffel, too sweetly for his taste. “I wondered when you’d call me over to introduce myself, Daniel.”

Kepler chuckled behind them as Maxwell shook Hera’s hand vigorously. Hera beamed at her.

“So, you live on the third floor?” Hera asked them. Maxwell nodded. “How do you like it?”

“It’s… homey. Although I wouldn’t mind if it were slightly better insulated.” Maxwell said, and Jacobi elbowed Kepler.

“You ever gonna fix that, old man?” Jacobi asked. Kepler shrugged.

“We’ll see what the profit on the pub is this year.”

“We’re in for a cold winter if people aren’t in the mood to go out.” Jacobi said.

Eiffel groaned. “Tell me about it.”

Kepler shook his head and sighed dramatically. “I’ll do my best, _children_. You worry about your own jobs and I’ll worry about mine.”

“What _is_ your job, by the way?” Eiffel asked Jacobi. “I thought I heard you say the other day that you’re a medical student…?”

“Yep.”

“If you don’t mind me asking, why do you live with a medical student if you don’t have to?” Hera asked Maxwell, her tone joking.

“I do mind you asking.” Maxwell replied, in the same sweet and even tone that made Eiffel bristle. Hera merely shrugged.

“Well!” Jacobi exclaimed. “It’s been lovely to talk to all of you, but we really should be going. Maybe we could have dinner together sometime? In the spirit of neighborly camaraderie?”

“I’d like that very much.” Hera said with a smile.

“I’ll come bang on your door sometime.” Maxwell said, smiling back. The two of them left, and, after a glance at Kepler, who was starting on a third drink, Eiffel and Hera did as well.

“I’m telling you, there’s something suspicious about them.” Eiffel said under his breath to Hera as they ran the short distance from the door of the pub to the stoop that would take them upstairs to their rooms. Hera shushed him as they headed upstairs, looking up and over the railing to see that their neighbors were already safely back in their own flat. Eiffel frowned and waited until they were back in their own hallway and hanging their coats up in the closet before nudging Hera for her opinion.

“I liked them.” Hera said. “Maxwell reminded me of Minkowski a little bit, actually.”

“ _What?”_ Eiffel paused in the sitting room, in the process of going to light a fire, to stare at Hera in the dim light.

“She’s very assertive.”

“Oh come on! You can't tell me you didn't think there was something weird going on with them."

“I didn’t say that.” Hera said slowly. “I can like them and find them suspicious at the same time.”

Eiffel finished setting up the fire and wiped his hands on the arm of the couch, sitting down  and leaning on the arm and continuing to look at Hera. “So you think it’s a good idea to have dinner with them?” he scoffed

Hera shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“What happened to me being a good judge of character?” Eiffel grumbled.

“You _are_ , Eiffel, but I want to know what’s going on with them and we’re not going to find out by avoiding them, are we?”

“I guess…” Eiffel said. If anyone could snoop unobtrusively on their neighbors, it was Hera. She knew this building and this area better than anyone else, probably including Kepler. And she was pretty good at putting mysteries together, so why shouldn’t she be good at taking them apart? “Like your detective stories, you mean?”

“Exactly!” said Hera, plain and open excitement on her face. “We have dinner with them, it gives me a chance to see inside their rooms.”

“Unless they insist on having dinner here.” Eiffel pointed out. “Or down at the pub.”

“Leave that to me.” Hera said happily. “In the mean time, I have a plan.”

 

Hera’s plan turned out to be to send Eiffel the next evening to ask Hilbert about medical school and try to bring up their new neighbors. Eiffel was absolutely certain this tactic was more a matchmaking attempt on her part than any hope of gaining real information, because Eiffel was terrible at keeping up a lie and Hera knew it. They’d managed to convince people that they were married for so long through a combination of Hera’s much greater skill in this area and the tendency of strangers to arrive at the assumption they wanted them to reach.

Lies only worked, Eiffel thought as he walked down Guilford Street and up towards Hilbert’s flat, when they made sense with the rest of a person’s character and with societal assumptions. Hera and Eiffel being married made sense; they were close and they lived together. Minkowski and Lovelace’s business being a music hall made sense; such venues were generally more open to women than the theater. But Eiffel and Hera were queer and were roommates, and Minkowski and Lovelace had ended up inheriting the theater from an old man who’d helped Minkowski find suitable work when she left the Foundling Hospital and then kept it up through the sheer force of their combined personalities. The truth was often complicated, and Eiffel could deal with complicated, but he couldn’t deal with the delicate balancing act that was keeping up a lie under direct scrutiny. He just hoped Hilbert was invested enough in keeping whatever his own secrets were not to pry too deeply into Eiffel’s. He really didn't need this man finding out any of his tragic past or bizarre present. 

With a deep breath to steady himself, Eiffel rang the bell on the stoop of Hilbert’s flat. Not two seconds later Hilbert answered the door, looking surprised to see him. He was wearing his coat, scarf, hat and gloves.

“Eiffel. What a surprise.”

“Were you headed out?” Eiffel asked, then wanted to kick himself for the stupid question.

“Yes. I was going for a walk. Did not expect to see you again.”

“I would have sent some advance warning if I could.” Eiffel muttered.

“Is no problem. You are welcome to join me?” Hilbert offered, stepping out onto the stoop and locking the door behind him.

“I…” The sun was going down, and Eiffel had already walked through the cold winter evening for twenty minutes to get over here. He had not anticipated spending more time outside and didn’t really relish the idea. But he found himself saying, “Yeah, alright.”

They set off down the back street together, out through the narrow row of flats, through the rusted gate, exchanging stilted  pleasantries about the weather. Eiffel noticed Hilbert look wistfully into the sweet shop as they passed.

“You ever been in there?” Eiffel asked.

“No. Have you?”

“No.” Eiffel nudged Hilbert’s elbow with his own. “Let’s go in.”

“Why?”

“It’ll be warmer in there.” Eiffel said with a shrug, rubbing his hands together. “C’mon. You know you want to.”

Hilbert looked conflicted. “My finances-“

“Who said you’re paying? I’m the one who showed up at your home and you _did_ save me from getting robbed. I’ll buy you something. C’ _mon_.” Eiffel grinned at him, and Hilbert let out a sigh that drifted upward as a cloud of steam in the cold air.

“Very well.”

“Excellent.” Eiffel’s grin widened as he hurried into the small building.

It was very warm in the shop, and smelled like melted butter and sugar. Eiffel stood just inside the door, breathing deeply.

“You are blocking the entrance.” Hilbert said after a moment, and Eiffel stepped to the side so Hilbert could pull the door closed behind them. There wasn’t much space inside the tiny building (presumably because most of the shop was devoted to the back room where that wonderful smell was coming from) and Eiffel moved up against the glass case and looked down at the variety of sweets.

“So, what do you like? Chocolate, marshmallows, nougat, caramel, toffee, those little peppermint things …” Eiffel continued to look through the case.

“Get whatever you like.” Hilbert said, also looking down into the case.

“No, I wanna know what you want.” Eiffel said. “What if we have entirely different preferences?”

“I like all sweets, you cannot disappoint me in this area.” Hilbert said with a small chuckle.

“Ahh, I see.” Eiffel said, rubbing his chin, which was still quite cold from the outside air. “Well, in that case…” He waved to the man behind the counter and requested some of everything.

“Eiffel.” Hilbert chastised him. “There are close to thirty different items in this store.”

“Yep there are. And now we have a variety of stuff to eat while we walk.” Eiffel said, trading the shop keeper a number of coins for the large paper bag he’d filled for them.

Hilbert let out an exasperated noise. “Are you always this frivolous with money?” he asked as Eiffel stuck his hand into the bag and pulled out a sugared violet.

“Only where friends are involved.” Eiffel shrugged and held out the bag for Hilbert, who took his glove off and pulled out a chocolate. Eiffel watched him pop it in his mouth with some satisfaction before the two headed out of the shop and back into the cold night.

Talking came much easier with a bag of sweets between them, Eiffel found. He asked Hilbert about his studies and Hilbert asked him about the area they lived in and how he liked it. Eiffel didn’t learn anything about Jacobi and Maxwell directly, but he did learn that Hera’s assumption that all medical students would necessarily share their bloodthirsty tendencies to be incorrect; Hilbert seemed to find the high mortality rate within hospitals to be entirely avoidable and needing correcting.

“Comes down to skill of surgeons.” Hilbert said around a mouthful of nougat. “There have been many advances in post-operative methods in past decades but not all hospitals practice these methods. There isn’t enough understanding of infection and safe operating techniques, even now. Too few corpses to practice on.”

Eiffel frowned. “I know a couple other medical students who would seem to say differently.” He told Hilbert about the conversation he’d overheard between Jacobi and Maxwell.

Hilbert scoffed. “Typical layman ignorance. Just because there are _dead people_ doesn’t mean there are readily available corpses for medical dissection. There are legal issues, Eiffel.”

Eiffel bristled at his tone. “Hey, I’m just telling you what I heard my neighbors say. Don’t get all snooty at me.”

Hilbert sighed. “I… apologize. I am not used to speaking to people outside the medical school.”

“That’s fair.” Eiffel said, stretching as they rounded the corner onto Russell Square. “I'm not usually very social either. Forget about it.” He took a peppermint from the bag and looked around. “We’re close to my street. I guess I’ll see you around.”

Hilbert looked taken aback. “Oh. Of course. Please feel free to stop by my flat again.”

“Yeah, I will.” Eiffel nodded. Hilbert made to thrust the bag into his arms but Eiffel shook his head and grinned. “You keep that, I bought it for you.”

“Eiffel there is a ridiculous amount of sweets in here…”

“So you’ll have a stock for a while. Keep it.”

Hilbert smiled at him, and Eiffel felt something warm and sweet spread in his stomach that had nothing to do with confections. He headed off down Guilford Street, waving goodbye to Hilbert as he went. Hilbert waved back then headed back up the direction he’d come, disappearing into the dark.


End file.
